Third-century Chinese war story, a two-and-a-half-hour reduction of what was twice that long in its native land, released there in two parts. Two and a half hours seem more than too much, although any complaints about the mess of it, the incoherent jumble, might invite a challenge from its partisans to sit through the unabridged version before rendering judgment. John Woo, who certainly has his partisans, owns an unwarrantable reputation as a "master" (a messer, yes), and it appears doubtful that double the length would do much to redeem the melodramatic performances, the dissolve-happy coy love scene, the infrequent interjection of martial-arts superpowers, or the wildly energetic gear-grinding visual technique of short punchy zooms, hither-and-thither moving cameras, slow-motion, whatnot. It's just possible that in the full cut his characteristic balance of gore and schmaltz, or rather his imbalance favoring gore, might be affected a few degrees in the other direction. Only the fiercest partisan will want to know. There's one absurd yet amusing ploy to deplete the enemy's arrow supply, sending out straw-padded boats in a fog to be transformed into floating pincushions, and there are impressive arrays of flags, ships, geometric masses of men. In spite of the cast of thousands, the climactic battle comes down to that signature Woo moment when, having found each other amid the chaos, the two principal antagonists hold their weapons to one another's heads. Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang, Chiling Lin, Wei Zhao. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
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